lecturer at the annenberg school for communication at the university of southern california. he served as the chief correspondent for the pbs series front line and has made six television films garnering the murders awards including the emmy for lights, camera, politics for abc news is this indicative columnist these articles have appeared in more than 100 newspapers since 1979 and use the author of several books including ford not a link in what the people know, freedom and the press, president kennedy profile of power and president nixon alone in the white house. leading tonight's conversation this thomas childress the sheldon lucey professor of history at the end of your city if pennsylvania where he has taught since 1976. in addition to teaching here professor childress has held professorships at trinity college, cambridge, smith college and swarthmore college and he's lectured in london, oxford, berlin, munich and other

universities and is recognized as an authority on 20th century german and author of several highly acclaimed books on the third right in the second world war. we are honored to have both of these accomplished speakers tonight so help me in welcoming richard reeves and thomas childress. [applause] >> it's a pleasure and honor to be here at the national constitution center and to be able to have a conversation with richard. i will restrain having read so much of your work about the president's to ask you about this current president but instead to talk about this new book richards which is a remarkable book about an absolutely the astonishing series of events in 1948, 49. it is particularly important to me i lived several years in

berlin but as a student and then teaching at the free university which was founded at precisely this period. one of the things -- one of the major defense every year and if a year i was in berlin was the friendship day which is held up the tempelhof airport and the spirit which was always recognition of the men who were involved in the airlift. berlin was a great place to be an american for raviv in the roughest times in the post war period because the airlift. so it's i think we will have interesting things to say both from a macrolevel politics and american domestic politics but also a human dimension which is absolutely central to this. i think before we begin we are going to see a brief film about

giving film coverage for the period. >> what we will see is just a couple of minutes of newsreels from the period, american newsreel's some of you will recognize voices like edward marone and walter cronkite but it gives a picture of the political situation which was germany was divided to for occupation zones that is american, russian, british and french and then the british, french and american sections were essentially merged at a point so that you had we can to know as east and west germany because of its symbolic importance the city of berlin was also divided into four sectors, and shortly after

german berlin was rubble and it was a city of women, children and old men and wounded men and people were literally living in caves. for food they were dependent on agriculture from the eastern zone. berlin was 110 miles inside east germany. there came a point where joseph stalin was determined to drive out the american and british and french to get part of it just pride but part of it as espionage. we do not want a western window into the east and middle of his territory nor did he want a window where his people could see any of the west and decided to drive out his allies by blocking the land real income better and routes into the city

of leaving the allies with the option of trying to feed more than 2 million people by air and by air i mean planes like dc-3 which could hold only three times and d.c. four, 54 which could hold ten tonnes i also mentioned i wrote this because i was looking to write about a subject i felt was about the american that we, i grew up in that i thought of being an american as opposed to many people think now and there could never be a better example of us at our best in this great humanitarians adventure which a great political implications but also was down basically to save the people who had been trying to kill us and we have been trying to kill and these

newsreel's give you a sense of what it looked like during that time.

in june, 1948 blockades, trains and royte traffic and work stopped. the threat of starvation for 2 million citizens in west berlin blockade imposed by the communists to force withdrawal of the western allied forces. >> is it possible the americans will be forced out of berlin? we are not going to be forced out of berlin. in your opinion is there any danger of a war general? i would not like to minimize the seriousness of the situation in germany. in such a situation there is always a danger i consider a small danger because the people do not really want war. >> the people headed again last

week to protest communist terror tactics directed against the city of freedom. over a quarter of a million of them streamed in from all sectors to make this the greatest of berlinski five freedom rallies. here by the ruins symbol of german democracy they assemble to put their case before the world. new people of the world, you people in america and england and france and italy, look at this city and see that you may not abandon the city, that you cannot abandon the city >> instead berlin airlift is launched by a combined allied task force. >> their force assigned more

than 300 airplanes and more than 20,000 men to the airlift and britain made a large congregation of both air. ♪ it was an observation without precedent and as a test of precision, of logistics and weather service. >> with 40 to 50 airplanes going simultaneously men's lives -- until the late stages they were flown in five different levels. this called for extremely precise air traffic control. >> some of us had bombed berlin and now we were keeping the same city alive. it meant we had to get more from each airplane and each man than ever before.

>> the biggest was the call for utilities. it was packed in the g.i. pumpernickel. we collect bread. and milk for the kids. then medicine. every ounce of cargo was checked >> a new agreement signed in new york between them u.s.s.r. and the united states reaffirmed the removal of all restrictions on communications much as partitions and trade between west berlin and western zones of germany. >> attention, attention we have a communique about the lifting of the berlin blockade.

there was officially announced by the big four powers at 3:00 this afternoon that the blockade will be lifted on may 12th >> men's lives the gates are being opened now and the first vehicles are going. they seem rather happy about the whole thing. no matter where i may go i shall watch always with interest the part of berlin will play in the formation of a german government and with complete confidence that this part will be a democratic party. therefore i shall not use the

english word goodbye but rather try to say to you men's lives. >> her earlier general lucius clay, when he left berlin at the end of the airlift 750,000 people lined the route to tempelhof airport silently as he left the city. >> this was remarkable seeing the scenes of berlin. one of the scenes there was a man announcing the news on the street corner. was this? >> it was radio when the american sector. the american ingenuity and innovation in general ability to do things a separate extraordinary. the russians got to berlin two

months before we did. they took everything that wasn't bolted down and that was including the power stations in west berlin and move them to the soviet union and construction equipment and radio berlin which was the longest and strongest radio station in europe was in their sector of berlin. what we had was an 800 what radio station the was carried on telephone lines which there were very few so that to deal with the russian voice, the russians telling the story of what was happening. we use trucks and jeeps with announcers like that who went from square to square during the airlift announcing the news of the day.

>> you mentioned in your introductory remarks you were talking about the general view of the soviets and what they were up to and what they were trying to close off the land. was it in the summer of 1948 that prompted a dramatic action? this was the closest that we can i guess before the cuban missile crisis of a shooting war meant between the soviet union and the united states believes, i certainly think that if the war had begun it would have begun in berlin that stalin had a meeting with the german leaders, communist leaders of east berlin said in march. there were very few soviet records of this. it's pretty typical things that didn't go too well for them you find no records either because they were not kept or because they were destroyed. but there are minutes of meeting at which stalin said the east germans were complaining about

the west germans and the fact they were beginning to progress more economically and stalin said maybe we can figure out a way to drive them out. let's do. at the moment he waited for for the moment he thought he had a provocation and to them it was was when we introduced a new currency. for those of you too young to remember and most of them are, the united states demobilized almost immediately after world war ii. it was all bring the boys home. the boys came home to new lives, they command was that either buried or put in their plans were left in the bone yard. they call them desert in arizona. the soviets on the other and had a million troops surrounding berlin. we had 6,001 of the reasons for

that was the soviets never paid the red army during the war and one of the reasons they left the army in east germany in addition to wanting to dominate the part of the world was they were able to pay their soldiers and what was essentially worthless currency. hitler's marks in germany and when we decided and basically lucius clay decided we wanted a vital and industrial germany. there had been many americans who felt that we should try to return germany to a pastoral state and hold the population to 1500 calories a day a person so that they could never start another war again. the military governor of germany clay thought that was a losing policy and about what we needed was a strong germany as a buffer

zone between eastern and western germany. so that he pushed for the new currency and when that new currency came the soviets took that opportunity to set up the blockade. simic that example is one of miniet seems to me that emerges from the story where do have a local commander in this case lucius clay who is the governor of the american sector taking actions that are not really waiting for the chain of command to be and operation. >> ackley was a very strong man, quite brilliant. the only four-star general and american history who never commanded troops. he never got to command troops because he was so first in his class at west point, followed as a senator from georgia and he was a wizard of organization and basically was an industrial czar working in washington during the

war. he did what people did in those days and maybe it's unfortunate he can't do that now. people like lucius clay with confidence in their own abilities, there was a bunker underneath the american military headquarters in germany and part of that in berlin, part of that was a teletype room where they what teletype to washington and then on a screen much like this washington's answer would be typed out. that would be done in the middle of the night in europe. but basically that gave clay 20 and 48 hours on any decision he made, and this was a man as was the air force commander general curtis lemay. they made their decisions before the washington new with the questions were.

today with instantaneous communications and what not, local commanders, local political, the state department had people in germany, washington gives all the orders. the most important order was given in washington and harry s. truman after the blockade began met with the joint chiefs of staff headed by a legend, omar bradley, the cabinet led by a military legend, general george marshall. his cabinet and the new national security council about how to respond. the vote today unanimously that we should leave berlin that there was no way that we could feed the city or do not and when that finished robert lovett who was the assistant secretary of state said mr. president of the

russians need over from berlin shoes and harry truman said we stay in berlin, period and he said have you really thought about this, mr. president? and truman got up and walked out of the room and it was truman's determination along with clay's on the other end and then the competence and the bravery of these young men but when one of the most unlikely, it wasn't a battle but the situation in the biggest and humanitarian history. >> i think one of the things that's striking ac said the cabinet of these very prestigious military men, brad the commercial and so on and marshals staff had not only leavitt but george kennan was -- they were opposed to this and also a post for political reasons but it couldn't be done. but also just i think for the

logistical issues involved they didn't believe, they thought was simply impossible. >> they also thought we on the had 37 planes in germany when this began to try to bring in 4500 tons a day. the british carried one-third of the load so that one, they thought was impossible, number two, they thought it would be a huge embarrassment. omar's bradley's son-in-law was living in germany and was captain of air force with brusquely's daughter and grandchildren and who clay ordered that any americans serving in berlin if the had a family could the 50 wanted to but they had to take their family from the could move all their family that if they moved all their family they had to go with the family. and the only exception to that turned out to be roughly's own

family because he thought the russians will come in and sees them as hostages so they just thought there was no way this could happen. what did happen in fact was the approval rating on the polls were not quite what they were today. it was over 85% of the american people. this is how americans saw themselves. the country, the nation was wildly enthusiastic about this and i would conclude -- there could be arguments about this in fact it was the airlift that really elected harry truman in 1948. no one expected people would react that enthusiastically, that the country would be that united over an effort to save our former enemies. >> and truman's opponent did

that famous election with dewey and the man who was going to be is -- for the expected to be dewey's secretary of state, john foster dulles. both were opposed to their left. >> republicans were opposed because they thought it wouldn't work and number two because it was expensive. they had the same argument about anything. one of the great scenes -- the lucius clay was not the easiest man the world. his staff which was terrified of him would say when he is relaxed he is a nice guy. the problem is he never relaxes. and he didn't get along particularly well with germans despite what we saw and when john foster who had already said the first act came as a few

weeks before the election was assumed dewey was the next president and dallas came and had been blocking the airlift, came to clay's house for lunch in berlin, and they barely spoke. the displaced each other and ackley had invited the mayor of germany, an extraordinary man, mayor of berlin, who we saw in the film to come halfway through the thing, halfway through the launch and dulles said quite readily -- routers spoke six languages -- how can we expect the people of germany will not fold to the russians rather than starve to death and rather be beaten down. you can't gloss with that and he said the people of berlin are used to a great deal of suffering and willing to take a great deal more to avoid russian

domination. clade got up and said to him, whispered actually he is all yours now so it is lost to history what happened. dulles never said another bad word about the airlift. >> right. what actually was available, we talk about the impossibility of this feeding 2 million people, providing heat to berlin on a good day in the summer berlin is not terribly boreman and so there was very little fuel to do this. did they have any sense of how long an airlift would go on? >> it's an interesting question and also something else use it, one of the reasons the military was against it was that it meant taking every plane we had and many of the american airlines had but our military planes were all in the pacific and the general said the commanders

didn't want to strip everything on what they considered this for's mission so the ball was available in the beginning were the 37 planes, the d.c. three c's could carry 3 tons. the d.c. for could carry 10 tons and at the end of the airlift we were landing the major cargo being cold, the second being flower and online we were landing at each of three air fields in berlin landing and taking off a plan every 45 seconds and that is what it took at one point on monday they delivered 14 million tons of i'm sorry, 13 -- 1300 -- 13,000 tons

of material to the city but it was done one british officer described the american air fleet as a collection of parts flying in loose formation. [laughter] the planes were sold. among the things it is all the time in europe as most of you probably know so that among the many problems the young men had when they were called away from their families was universally hemorrhoids because they couldn't close the windows or the doors on the plains. it would be filled with water because the two major cargo, coal and flour are both exclusive inclosed situations so they had to fly with all the windows open and usually both doors open as well to avoid that. but it was cold and wet and they were flying in and out of the

crew's three times a day. >> and the crew. you mentioned the small number of the crews available initially but almost instantly they called up reservists to in thousand pilots and ground personnel and so on. >> the was to be the most exciting part of this story and the thing that attracted it to me. on june 26 the the airlift start and the world didn't know it yet, the telephones rang all across america and the smaller towns police came to the door and the daring young men who had been pilots, navigators, mechanics cost of petitions which were very important were told to report to the military bases within 48 hours and within 72 hours many of them were flying into berlin so that in many ways what is the story of

these men mostly of men who had given three or four years of their lives to the surface. they had come back and they had new wives, new babies come new jobs in one story after another and they were called back and do was believed the thing would only last two weeks that than diplomats would work something out. our relations with the russians were all the bad but that isn't what happened and they were there for years one of the big problems when it ended was the number of young men who could donner remember where they left their cars and if they could find the cars they forgot where they hid their keys when they were told this is temporary duty for two weeks. we also strive to the airlines. in those days there were fewer

flights. airline schedules were different in the winter because the lighting conditions were so much more difficult so that the government took not only the plains of american airlines but the pilots, the chief pilot of american airlines then was a man named arlan nixon who made $550 a month and the was a lot of money in those days. well, he went back to being the captain mix and at $140 a month and when he i arrived in frankfurt which is in the american zone and on the first what turned out to be the first day of the airlift went into a local cafe and acceded every german in the cafe, and they were the only people in there stood up, left their food and walked out. ..

all the flying was instrument flying, and so that they flew totally by instruments and the planes were such that they, the word among the pilots was come if one instrument works, it

goes. it didn't matter where did the benjamin did. >> you touch on a very interesting thing because not only were american mechanics and meteorologist and control tower personnel called up, but the airlift had to rely on the german mechanics, the german meteorologist and so one. >> that was one of the, they kept this secret as they could from the american people but we did not have enough mechanics. remember these planes were being used at five and six and seven times their rated capacity, so that things were breaking down much quicker and it was much more dangerous. there were an awful lot of crashes particularly on landings. and, bill tunneler, general william tanner you actually commanded the airlift, he was another workaholic, really the

blip was his nickname, on his own and then went to clay and got permission to hire lufafa mechanics. hiring meant to give them a meal a day so that suddenly you have a situation where again men from colorado named corky, by young man i mean 19, that is so old the occupation troops were coming found himself supervising 16 germans working on american planes and not speaking a word of german. many of them not speaking anything but german and in his crew was a former submarine captain, and two former squadron leaders from the lufafa now working to keep the american flying in keep berlin alive in court he was in of these people. they were all older than he was. they were veterans. he was not a veteran but he is a

very funny guy. he is still alive. he taught the germans, he couldn't see each them much about being mechanics. they were good mechanics but he did teach them to say the first day of commanding officers, the germans lined up and said good morning major, you son of a. [laughter] >> the only the germans could get away with that i think. there's the story i think you tell in the book about this one man who says one of the pilots who had flown 20 missions over germany so a lot of these pilots knew the terrain. they had seen it from 20,000 feet flying b-17's and he says here i am, left a year ago or five years ago and i was killing these people.

>> that was thompson who was a farmer from new hampshire, and his roommate in the ate their force and best friend named deanne dennis, his b-17 was shot down over the eastern part of germany during the war. and, dennis was, when he landed, was beaten to death by the farmers in the area. this was very common. people don't like the people to bomb them, and many pilots were beaten to death. in fact, if you remember, that is what happened to john mccain over hanoi. he came down in what amounts to the central park-- part of hanoi and people were drowning him. he came down in a lake, were drowning him when police in north vietnamese soldiers came and pulled him away from them. so suddenly noaa thompson knows

the exact spot where his friend was slaughtered, and is flying over it and thinking, my god, this is quite a world, isn't it? but he thought, like all of the others that thought, i know that you know a great deal about post-traumatic stress veterans. my own feeling is that the matter what you did, good or bad, the act of killing people trying to kill people, is going to do something to you. nds noaa thompson told me, he thought as he flew over that i would rather be defeating these people then killing them. without exception the people in combat veterans much preferred and said their greatest satisfaction was flying the airlift and i think because as i'm sure some of you know many veterans never talked about combat or about what they did in

the war, but they love to talk about what they did in airlift because they thought they had justified themselves in the eyes of whatever god they believed in. >> it was a strange experience for americans and it certainly wasn't what it world to have been bombing people with few years ago and for the german stu, they responded by saying they couldn't believe how much the americans trusted them. here german mechanics are working on planes that are going to be flown by american pilots and so one. >> it is a very interesting society study of the americans, the british and french. the french absolutely hated the germans. after all they had been occupied and brutalized by the germans. the british were correct. but they would have no real fraternization with the germans,

except both countries love what they call football, what weisel calls soccer and the british and the germans, the german mechanics and loaders would play soccer games when they weren't working. they were about the rothfuss soccer games in the history of this court. there was blood all over the runways at times from those games. but the americans, the germans simply couldn't believe it. the americans would point to the plane coming say you know, take that engine apart or whatever and then go have a smoke, said brandon talking what not. they had never seen people. one young boy described, the americans were being so totally different from german soldiers. first they didn't carry weapons. second, they didn't have hard faces in this 11-year-old boy,

except same age i am, said he couldn't believe that these people who obviously had a good life not only were willing but wanted to share it with other people. his name was wolfgang samuel. he lived at the end of the runway in phos bergin there came a day, there was a lot of love and marriage in this book, there came a day when an american sergeant came to see his mother, and you have got to remember germany was almost a country without men and he said to young wolfgang, my name is leo ferguson, call me leo. eventually we'll ferguson married his mother. they moved to colorado and with king samuel retired a few years ago as a colonel in the united states air force. >> talking about the dangers these men went through, flying

into and out of berlin. the three corridors into berlin, one in the north, one in the south and then they central one is the return, but one of the things and i wonder if you could describe the conditions of landing at the airport in the center of berlin? >> tempelhof airport for any of you have seen it one of the most extraordinary places in the world. in the first place on one side of it is a building. it is done in nazi gothic. it was the largest building in the world, three-quarters of a mile long. it looped around with seven levels. there were hospitals, plane factories down into the ground and there was more floor than any building in the world until the pentagon was finished. on the other side of this crespo, a very pretty. the other side of this grass bowl or six and seven story apartment buildings, and they

couldn't be torn down, not in a city that was almost 80% of its housing so that the planes had to come into this grass airstrip with metal maps on it. we put down medal maps, after marston north carolina, where they were built. the planes had to come in over, and again they were doing this in fog come at night. it was 24 hours a day and on instruments only. the clearance of the apartment houses to come into the runway were 17 feet. and many pilots swore that there were tire marks on the roofs of those buildings. then, in a short runway, grass airfield, they would practically have to dive in. at that time, the landing lowest allowable landing ratio in the united states air force was 40 to one. that is for every foot he went

down he went 40 feet. the blanding set tempelhof 410 to one. they came down like this and they hit so hard that it would break up the metal, rip up the ground and as they landed behind them would rush german workers, mostly women, and the only clothes they had sometimes bathing suits, sometimes evening gowns to almost with their bare hands, the russians had taken all of the construction equipment, which fell in the stones in the rubble really, bricks and dirt before the next plane popped out of this guy 90 seconds later. and then they would run off the field and the plane woodland and they would run back gunned and repair. not only did they do that, but there were not enough landing strips obviously in berlin, so that they built a new airport,

which is now the main airport in the city, but then was just the durham dealed indifferent sloan. 17,000 people, almost all of them women, built with their bare hands again, an airstrip they are in 60 days, and their pay for it as always was one more meal a day which was no small thing. but, that was the lincoln to feel, in germany and typically in berlin, if you feel that. i write stories of their reunions of these people but they pretty much feel, not only old enough because they teach this in this school's. i mean, they feel about americans the way young wolfgang sam guilted one leo ferguson came into his life. >> this was a city that was

still serving in 1948 and 49 and as you said 80% of the housing stock was gone. people were living in basements and so on so these troubled-- clearing things away and building things. it was quite remarkable. still in the '60s and '70s i have to say, tempelhof in juts, you still sort of went like this, down and i often think i am being hyperbolic but i'm not. you could look is your lendee, you could look over those apartment buildings and see people in their kitchens preparing lunch or dinner so one could only imagine what it was like when the planes would come in in these bad conditions. >> one of these ironies of course when the plane stopped coming in, the airlift continued after may 12 because we were building up stockpiles in case the russians tried another

block-- blocade, but said the planes kept coming in. mini, then they finally stopped in september and many germans, many berliners had trouble sleeping without the noise. they couldn't go to sleep without the noise of the planes going over which amounted to every 15 seconds a plane would be coming or going from all of the reports. >> those germans coming hearing airplanes in 1943, 44 and 45. one of the things about this book that is really at think not only gripping, the stories of landing their plans but also these human stories that you tell about the relationships, the man and his wife, the pilot and his wife, the wi-fi and agents to guam and is now been sent to berlin across the world, but there are also things, the candy mama. >> the woman you are talking about is named mary whitmark and

when i did a program in denver she was there. people went crazy applauding her. the candy bomber was a man named scale halverson, who was a mormon, later became provost at the university of utah. who, like-- when he landed he had in eight mm prieger spring loaded move the camera and he was nuts to use than the first time he landed in berlin, as a pilot, he went around the periphery with this tempelhof taking pictures of it and when he came to the end of the runway of by these apartment buildings, there were a whole bunch of kids standing there watching the planes land. the kids loved seeing that, watching it. and, he talked to them for a while. we actually spoke little german

and when he was walking away, he realized that they had never asked him for anything. he had been serving in the pacific in europe and of course kids were always asking for candy, money or whatever and he realized these kids did not ask for anything. he walked back in the only thing he had was a stick of wrigley's doublemint gum and heat tort into ten pieces. there were about 20 kids there and they divided it among themselves. the other is taking the bit lifton foil around it because it had some sugar on it and they could it. these were kids who had never tasted sugar, effort and then they said, you know, would you come back and do it? gail halvorson ended up the next day he came in with seven-- he and his crew used their sugar allotment at the px to buy candy bars and they dropped 17 the next day.

they made parachutes that of handkerchiefs so the stuff would not break up when it hit the ground. by the end of the airlift, we had passed along in people collected around the country candy for 40 tons of candy, which was collected by americans. the other thing that was collected that was sent by americans from home, harry truman said the first one or care packages some of these 10-pound or 18 pounds boxes of all sorts of food. it was, the food liftover care packages for the food that had been prepared for the invasion of japan. since there was no invasion of japan, and it was sent in many people could vividly described the first time they saw a care package and opened it and what

was then it and what it represented. among the people who felt that story was helmut kohl who became the chancellor. he was a 10-year-old boy at the time, who became the first chancellor of the united germany after the wall went down in 1989. but americans were sending over shiploads of candy. it was being collected that fire houses all over the country because of what gail halvorson had done and he thought he was going to get in trouble for doing it actually. >> the british, we should probably say something quickly about the british who were also very involved in the airlift. they couldn't dropped candy because britain was still living under austerity and rationing of food so they didn't have the candy. >> there were times during the airlift were we kept up in the amount as we could get more stuff and at one point it got to 2200 calories per person that we

were bringing in. that was more than the british were giving themselves. the airlift by the way was a british idea. when all of the american said you can't do this it was a british air marshal named merck's way to set up all night with the slide rule and 4500 tons was what they figured they needed. and, he brought in how many planes it would take, how often they would fly etc. etc., and when to lord robertson who was lucius clay's british counterpart and the first lucius clay was against the airlift. he thought it was impossible, and he wanted to use an armored column down the audubon the 110 miles from the western zone, and so when roberts and talk to him about an airlift, first he said it is impossible. it is absolutely impossible.

and robertson and then kurds devin the foreign minister of britain both said, well we are going to do it anyway, and it is certainly going to be embarrassing that americans can't do with all they have what we can do with nothing, and clay gave the right answer, which is, i am with you. but, it was-- the british were amazing and more brits died in the airlift then americans, parvi because their planes were even in worse shape than they had a larger crews. they carried a navigator with them so they had four men on the plane where we had three, so when airplanes crashed they tended to have a higher casualty rate but i for one, who was supposed with a bit of then-- came away with an enormous respect. the english to me are so-- their

virtues and their faults seem to be the same, that stubbornness, that they have but it has certainly served them and also the world well in 1948. >> right. i think we have time for one last question observation and then we will open things up for questions from the floor. there are so many interesting stories in this. i am particularly taken with the two american pilots and copilots who were listening to the army-navy game on the radio. the game was being played here in philadelphia and they went well beyond berlin and found themselves in soviet controlled territory and had to turn around and come back. there are lots of things like this. but, i think one closing remark, what do you think the united states, what was the lesson drawn not simply by the government but by the american public from the airlift? >> well, i think that the lesson was already there. i mean it has to do with what we

would call in the classroom american exceptionalism and what not. this was, and the reason truman in my mind is a great man, is that he knew somehow instinctively certainly no one could tell him, that this is how americans see themselves. this is how we want to be. this is the way people my age were brought up, believing we were. i decided to do this book because of abu ghraib. i have lived a lot of places in the world, including the middle east and asia and the idea of the american being they did in my old age as it were, compared to what it was when i was a youth, i tickets almost personally. i mean the berlin airlift is who we are, not the tortures, and i wanted to bring that story out

and to the extent that i can, to reevaluate who we are, where we came from, what we do and what we don't do and they think that that was the way, that was what was tapped in the the america, tom brokaw's america, the greatest generation. he talks about considering it not the first battle of the cold war but the last air battle of world war ii. but, so in the end if i am representing the american people, in my heart these are the people i want to to be. >> it is a marvelous story and we have just scratched the surface with it tonight. but, i think we have time for questions and what we would like to ask you to do is if you would

come to the microphone on the side, come here and queue up as the british say. i am sure richard would be happy to take your questions. >> as i was listening to you in reading a little bit of the book i realized how much of a hero truman again was for doing the right thing. of the three presidents, let's not include ford just for this, of the three presidents you have written about-- >> for. i meant kennedy, nixon-- >> kennedy nixonland reagan could either of them have done what truman did? with either of them have had the will to overcome the opposition of their entire cabinet because something so fanciful as this? >> you know, i don't know.

the trilogy i wrote on really shows what a reactive job it is, the campaigns of promises and those things don't mean anything. we'll pay presidents by the hour. we pay them for judgment in crisis. i think it is very possible the harry truman was the only one of those three men. reagan would be the next, who would do something strictly on instinct. he had no idea that it would work, but he had a very good idea the americans were not going to be pushed out of berlin and i think it was interesting, the obama mccain election, i am prejudiced. i have a daughter who is a writer for obama in the white house. however, this is not the kind of thing that barack obama would do. he wants all the information. he wants to think it out in john

mccain, a very instinctive and sometimes-- politician is the kind of person who might have done something like this against all advice, against all council. yes, they are a great apart and they hated the airlifters who they called grocery delivers. >> on that note, you mencia tab bradley and marshall were so against the airlift to begin with. what was their response after they saw how successful the airlift was? >> marshall was very sick so he really didn't have-- bradley was truly mystified by that. he thought it was luck. and of course some of it was luck but you know, the great make their own luck. i wanted to say one thing about truman's role in all of this and when i was looking for something to write what actually got me to

write it was in reading tony judd the possible outcome of post for which is a very fine book on this period and david mccullough's book on truman which obviously is a wonderful book on truman, but in both of those books the berlin air lift its about two paragraphs. it was then i realized people don't know this anymore. they know in germany but not in america and america is where i felt we needed to know it. >> did they say anything to publicly? >> no, they never said anything publicly about being against the there. the president as president and they are soldiers. the president is the commander in chief. >> thank you both for your comments. i wondered if he might though comments what was happening at the united nations at the time of the decision to airlift berlin. it would seem the united nations like so many times when security

councilmembers that at odds, just debates and there is no inaction. >> well, the picture that we saw here for a moment of people talking at a table was the soviet ambassador, jake of malika in the american representing announcing the end of it. this is how the airlift ended or the blocade and it. the airlift continued for a while. stalin took neither advise nor questions as far as anyone could tell but american reporters would constantly send of written questions to the kremlin and the hope that stalin said something to say. a man named kingsbury smith it was the chief foreign correspondent on the hearst news service had sense questions to stalin, in stalin to answer those five questions.

no one particularly come a dean acheson was the first one who understood what one of stalin's centers manned. that is when he was asked about berlin. the airlift was still going on. when he was asked about berlin he did not mention currency reform which after all would stand to reason for the blockade. acheson would to truman and told him that, and they then decided that acheson in his next press conference, he gave weekly press conferences, would mention the stalin answers were very interesting. that was the open part. behind the scenes part was that our delegation to the u.n. would ask their delegation, malik, was the omission of currency reform deliberate, and two weeks later mallach came back and said yes, it was. then the question was, at the

next question was, is your leader open to solving this problem at this time? in the answer came back two weeks later, yes. it was a tremendous embarrassment. they knew they had lost once the winner was over. general winter had defeated napoleon. general winter had defeated hitler and he assumed general hitler-- general winter would defeat the air live and when it didn't he knew the game was up. >> he played a role in keeping the dialogue open. >> yes, yes. it was one of the real drawings. >> i think we have time for one more. >> i have a related question. can you speak to the prime minister britain and the political situation in britain and how that might have related to the american decision to do

the airlift? >> what's related to it was as many of you probably remember in the potsdam conference in which the-- were set up, churchill was prime minister. he was then defeated by clement atley of the labour party and a key figure for the british was not ackley but was ernest bevin, the labor leader who became a great foreign secretary of britain, and ackley in the last month of the airlift, the first time, blevin had been there many times, came over and looked at it, and then was asked, what do you think of this? he said this is the eighth wonder of the world, and so it was. >> this was a terrific way to

kick off our 2010 programming schedule so thank you very much to richard reeves. [applause] and thank you very much to professor childers for doing a wonderfub moderating. both have copies of their books in the lobby are at sticking around for a few minutes to sign copies. thanks again for coming in we will see you soon. richard reeves is the author of biographies of presidents john f. kennedy, richard nixon and ronald reagan. he is a syndicated columnist and currently a senior lecturer at the annenberg school for communication at the university of southern california. for more information visit richard reeves.com. >> next, portion of booktv's monthly three-hour live program in depth.

>> i basically am a country guy. i live ten years in london. i grew up ten years in london, ten years in new york. i lived in key west for a while and various, central california and i came up here and people are like you know the days when you said rural seclusion for a writer and his rural coming up wearing a shirt like leo tolstoy is really not wear this hat. i mean with modern communications you can wake up in the morning and read every newspaper on the planet. it is very different. i mean we have in petrolia, in the winter we have power outages and all the rest of it but you know these days, personally i don't think-- so that you have a dsl line. you have every image in the world and to many are available to you. i ambien san francisco and five hours if i feel like it, if i

have meetings i can fly around so that is where i am at and what i am doing. it is an ideal circumstance for me. >> that is done by my friend the artists, steve rogers, the massacre on the real. there's a lot of stage work around here. down in high relief about a terrible massacre, basically sponsored by the united states on the rio, on the borders of the honduras. the soldiers are doing the massacre and there are the poor peasants caring the coffins. there's a lot of work by steve rogers around here and one of my favorite. here is the old stable, built about five years ago that friends of mine in the valley built. in there is agnes, 17 years old.

who is a thoroughbred arab cross, wonderful, wonderful horse. my mother bred horses so i have always liked horses, right agnes every day. here she is having a midmorning snack. i tend to get up around 6:30 and the counterpunch web site, jeffrey my poetic tiered jeffries and claire is in oregon city. he puts the site of on the new material up bet 7:30 zoe kracken about 6:30 and we discuss what stories might come up on the site. probably cumulative from the previous day and talk about what is going on in what people seem to be interested in what the big events in the world are and then jeffrey gets this site, somewhere ben 6:30 and 8:00 so it is a busy time. a man early guy anyway.

i do counterpunch material. i do column for the nation, one i have been doing since 1984. i do that every second tuesday to a syndicated column. then we are usually working on a couple of books for counterpunch press. those are the birds which really come of the dog, the cat and the birds right everything for me but we try to keep quiet about that. do you want to read the column for me? sit down, come on, sit down. sit, sit, good boy. now, you are miserable life as a dog. wants to get me the first chapter? one of the nicest books about the dog ever written. some writers like no noise. i like animals because they don't criticize. animals always do that.

is an abuse start talking they drown you out. i used to have a program i did for south africa a radio feet. the minute i went on the phone for south africa all of the birds would start screaming. lived in some northernrica five california john cult. so come any way that takes me through the morning, editing for the counterpunch books we are doing. to it three book projects, and but in the middle of all this because i like to-- and i have horses and i'm always running around building things, so life kind of lurches forward to the day. this is a building which we called the sigh house which we put up three of four years ago. it is an old technique of ramming, i think like many writers i like to think about things other than writing and i like to build. this is a square building going

into a dome than by my friend and neighbor greg smith. this is a freeze. jasper is very pleased he is in the picture. steve rogers did. i think many people thought this was some kind of out's abakai that one point because it looked like little like ed maddy stearn mosque but it is a very nice building. i love to build. if i had enough money i would be like the second bavarian. >> i don't like to read in the evening unless i have to do something for england and of course you know england is eight hours from here. if you were going to get something on someone's desk by 8:00 in the morning you have to do it until late in the night but that is the shape of my day. it is not particularly month like in its rightful seclusion. i spend a lot of time passing on the telephone, three or four

people. allitt tina in olympia washington who also does the editing on the books. my business operations are run by becky grant and devah wheeler. incredible efficiency of cars. counterpunch books, weublishing books and the newsletter that we wanted to keep it more permanent form. our web stuff on the counter pence side is not go away. some is in the fast black hole of volt internet communications. probably some government archive then god help the people that have to go through. we begin with a book called the politics of anti-semitism because we did a whole bunch of articles about this idea that if you aritical of israel that you are an anti-semite which was absolute nonsense.

our association with ak press. a pretty bunch of well organized anarchists dauman oakland and ak we accept dearlove thee, looks after the bookshelf's distribution. we also sell the books on our web site. people write in the end we said them from the office here. it was natural for us. we had a bunch of articles and then we just got into books like. again it is not expensive. if you can sell them and you have a web site in which you can advertise them all the time so we have done five or six books. the latest one is and which is out this month actually, done by myself and jeffrey my co-editor and co-author in this one. we have got a book, danny cassady's book, how the irish invented slang widget think will be a very important book because it just shows much of american

slang comes from irish including words you wouldn't believe like poker and jacks and dan is done this book. it is a whole had part of the american language etymology. if you look at h.l. minton, there are three words from my risch in america today it is complete nonsense for the millions of irish people came to america speaking irish. the words didn't go away. they just transmitted into american that danny is the first person who is gone for it methodically and shown how many f.c., honest words in the american language ars sling are pretty much straight irish, gaelic, so i am going to publish my dad's memoirs which are classics, alaikum claude introduced by gore fidel in basically the politics and the bush administration. shy to crie bush administration as we were

not shy to criticize the clinton administration. so we did a dime's worth of difference before the last election basically saying there isn't a times for the difference between the two parties. we have-- which got a lot of democrats pretty mad so we occupy a definite site and i wouldn't want to say nish because nish seems to be very small but i think you know we are figured pretty large and when people say there must be more to life than the democratic party even though we both the republicans that his counterpart saying come over here. you can learn a lot about the world. that is what we are really all about. my father would get up at 5:30 on a typewriter just like the number ten typewriter i've got here clacking away and you know that was a different era. i grew up with hot metal type in newspapers and my dad who was a

writer, a great writer and i am going to publish his memoirs and in counterpunch, by claude. there was one telephone line to the outside world in the middle fifties. he would finishes writing his articles and then he would jump on his bike and ride 3 miles to the town. and that the only time he really got mad at me in the whole of my childhood when he got fed up with me riding into town instead of reading a book in the evening and i let down the tires of his bicycle. he said any other father would be you. any other father. that is the culture i came up and for years and years i walked away on emanuel standard typewriter. my father worked on that for many years, 1930 to almost the day he died, not quite 1980. i must have typed about, i don't know, for 5 million words on one of these machines as most journalism writers of my generation did. the only person i know who still

does they think is ralph nader. ralph tells me, told them i had an underwood tin and he got incredibly excited. he went to catalyze it. he might be a hold up. so that was my work habits and for writing books and, editing and all that and you know, i remember i wrote columns in new york until 1984. when i sent an article to england, i had to get on the subway in manhattan in the middle of the night to go down to the telex office, writing on the ee train, the b train all the way down, take the train all the way to self manhattan. then i move to key west for a while and that was in the early 80s. the fax machine was coming in. the ewind fax gindin fedexed forgot that easier to be a

columnist outside new york actually. and then of course you know i really only went on line, it must have been 2,000-- know, 1998. i was lee to the game. my co-editor, when it was obvious the right to do it. what are my work habits now? i put the typewriter way. it was the end would ten or selectric ibm. i thought i will have you out in a little bit so i got the poor old thing out and felt treacherous about it actually and then here i am with a, with a laptop. i am a hunton peck guy, 223 fingers. no rippling arpeggio's figures for may hammering away at the keys. people used to laugh at me because i used to wear the imagery, where the characters off of the keys because i would

hit them hard. of course it is just incredible. when i started doing pamphleteering newsletters back in the '60s and '70s, you know you would get on your bicycle and ride to the printers and london are somewhere. when i worked in the print shop, it was very exciting. to this day i love to watch the presses. in the old days are whole newspaper building would shake. and it was a lot of fun. i still wish i had an old ham press to set up tide began. i have not gotten a brann to it. here we are iththodern world. i'm sitting here in petrolia california, a very remote place until recently. the phone service was kind of 50 and now i've got a dso connection, high-speed connection like writers all over the place. no doubt the whole planet will be wi-fi pretty soon. the lefts tends to be

pessimistic about things in general and kind of down in the mouth about life in general. i always say be of good cheer. we are and aged for the moment where we have a huge edge we didn't have 20 or 30 years ago. when i began, you thought it was great if you were demonstrating to handy leafletting voice soldier going on to an army because the soldier would crumple it up and throw it on tr emma web site thatk of his 30,000 people a month in the u.s. military are reading our stuff on the base. imes," theerence. mighty "new york times," publisher gillison tarbuck, right in the book we have here. he says i really don't know whether we will be printing the times in five years. he said that in january and this is our book, and times. the "new york times," this

laptop is 12 inches high. it is all equalized else so we are progressive but radical web sites and newsletters are much stronger relative to the mighty moguls and the titans of the old line print media than was true five or ten years ago. the tables have leveled out a little bit so this is a time of great opportunity for us. i like old iron. this is an old 62 plymouth belvedere wagon. i have driven that across the states a couple of times. it is that a380 wide plotkin it. so we can abakai if you like. plenty of room to look under the hood. as long as you keep the engine tend i think it is actually less polluting not to have a catalytic converter as my friend peers gray instructed all the

catalytic converter does is create sulfuric acid which then sprays all over the neighborhood after the hydro carbons passover that catalytic converter. this is a car from the late '60s. newport, 68 newport to door with a 383 engine in it. i got it on the west coast, dr. vitter arounds try not to get tickets in it. but, i like to just drive around, drive across the country, meet lots of people. modern cars. all cars that the same these days. got no character at all. you can drive thousands of miles and barely see an old car anymore. everybody is tucked in behind the wheels of the acondas, or toyota's, a few holdouts still trying to support the auto

american industry. we just go along in the older car. it costs a little bit more i gas may be but then you haven't spent all the money in the first place so it works out pretty good. you feel you are driving along with something with a little character. when i got here in the early '80s, i got here in 1962 imperial which i and my dear friend drove up from coral gables upton vermont. we actually broke down almost definitively, actually it was where john t. rockefeller spent three days which is two and three-quarters days to long right next to daytona. and we joe with up and then if you get into a certain-- i was always into chrysler's and imperials. my good friend dave, who at that time was selling visible the imperials and chrysler products near greenville south carolina and i got to be very good friends with dave which was a

whole new part of america i didn't know much about. so i got into old cars and then of course i would go to dave's place imperial motors in greenville and i would drive him across the country so i have driven, and people say just get in the old valient, 1960 valient and drive west. so you break down once in awhile. people talk about-- and worry about being stiffed by mechanics. everyone has got a bad lawyer story. and hundreds of visits to shops and garages in new mechanics i think i've been taken to the cleaners in a way that i thought was unfair maybe twice. that is a very good strike record. my friend-- so i pretty much come i've driven across america nearly 100 times and you just get to the different roads. different ways for could you

meet all sorts of interesting people. i know the motel pretty well come a motel 6 and all the rest of them. i have what 60% of american motels by the patel family from india and initially a lot of those were pretty suspicious people. over the years there a bit more congenial and outgoing. i just love, you know you can go the northern way. you can go right under the canadian line there and you can go to the upper plains are you could go through some of the southern way through you know, through bill months and new orleans and then out across west texas and come up that way. america's got, just the most incredible friday that he will ever really note al, particularly if, added this does not to drive on the interest of the drive on the secondary buzz. you just find a thousand

different things, people, this is, the stop been. i trying to do with at least once ast like the feel not liker driver and i'm not a guy who s a q-tip and cleans up the air cleaner and gets everything all but for the auto show. i like to drive them and i have got six or seven old cars around and i like to keep them going in drive them around. there is something i don't know, maybe, i do not come from a mechanical family. my father couldn't drive. i was the first member of my family to learn how to drive in 1957. if you took a picture of the main street in the town of the island in 19562 years before learn to drive, i think it was 90% horse-drawn traffic still. ten years later was 90% cars one of which was our car.

he does not like cars. ever since the brakes failed. just for's knows that this windscreen. he does not like to get in the car at all. he says he were driving boss, i think i will stay home. i grew up in an island and there were plenty of towers around. various stages of ruan. there was also the old ron tower. there was one of my home village. i have always been kind of tower oriented so after being here while in petrolia and built the tower. sordid tower like anyway. here is the view from the tower in the distance. you have got lore hill and over more hill there. there is the pacific ocean. we are about 5 miles from the pacificare. this valley has the mattole river which is one of the last

wild rivers and california. the mattel indians wiped out in the late 18th century. the problem with laptops and pc's, i think they make you write to fest. if i had my way anyone learning to write would have to use a stone chiseler and a piece of stone and they would learn how not to make mistakes before they work. >> in depth there is live at month on booktv on first sunday c-span2. log on to booktv.org for information about upcoming guests.

>> "too good to be true" is the name of the book by erin arvedlund, the rise and fall of bernie madoff. ms. erin arvedlund what is too good to be true? >> everything about mcduff was too good to be true, the returns, the consistency of the returns and the fact that nobody seemed to be, seem to know how he was investing the money. so, all and all, it turned out that if it really is too good to be true then he should just stay away. >> why did you, why did you write about bernie madoff? was there a fascination? do you know fibro the stories forebearance magazine back in 2001, questioning his returns and asking you know how he

managed the million dollar hedge fund that no one had ever heard of before. the story ran, and nothing happened. seven years went by and last december of 08 he was arrested so i was approached by penguin to write a book. >> when you were writing in 2001, why? >> hedge funds ronde the rise. i wanted to write about someone who was really under the radar so to speak. i knew that hedge funds were going to be a big deal as we see today. they are everywhere and they are here to stay. and they are probably going to be regulated by congress pretty sin. back then, birdie madoff was the known on main street and he never lost money, and i just wanted to know how he did it. that was live wrote the original story. >> where does your book and? >> well, it is still on going

because on friday, in fact two of madoff's computer programmers were charged with conspiracy in helping perpetuate this whole fraught. really is going to keep going probably for another couple of years because they need to figure out who else was involved because certainly made of it not do it alone. >> follow-up book? >> writing a paper bag that will be out this spring. >> erin arvedlund, "too good to be true" the rise and fall of bernie madoff. >> erin appeared on g. gordon liddy's radio program to talk about his book, "when hell was in session." it is about his years as a p.o.w. in vietnam and his efforts to inform the outside world about what was happening at the hanoi hilton. this is 25 minutes.